Life is full of paradox -Opinion piece 5

Life is full of paradox.

Recently, I decided to plan how I used every cent I earned in a month, down to the most basic of expenses. At first, it felt frightening. It all sounded clinical, mechanical, like stories of weired scientists or philosophers who sat in labs or offices working all the time, without a social life, writing rules for every move they made, like robots.

I went ahead all the same, and doing so made me realize how I took so many things for granted, and why I run into unpleasant surprises in the course of a month.

The meticulous planning which I thought was going to be strings binding me from using my money as I please rather created a lot of freedom for me.

I know the budget for every expense. This knowledge allows me to actually spend as I please within the limits of the allocated money for a particular expenditure. Sometimes, there are leftovers from a budget for say, water or light bill, and this money becomes “free money” to be used for anything I wish.

I wouldn’t have known exactly how much excess money I have, which has been my mistake for previous months. And I have come to realize how month after month of planning makes me better at planning, able to foresee looming financial disaster based on the past and make provisions.

And so, what seemed at first like a lot of work, writing down expenses and making deductions to see what’s left of what, turned out to be one of the most liberating habits cultivated.